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The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

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201–210 of 421 posts

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#201

As far as I can tell, the AI-hate is most prominent in tech circles (creativity too, but they don't like media generation, largely embrace text though). It seems here on the ground in non-tech bubble land, people use ChatGPT a ton and lean hard on AI features. When Google judges the success of bolted on AI, they are looking at how Jane and John General Public use it, not how xleet007 uses it(or doesn't). There is als…

The article has 877 likes (on its own page, not here). I think most of those are not technical.

Marsha Blackburn's amendment to remove the "AI legislation moratorium" from the "Big Beautiful Bill" passed the Senate 99-1.

People are getting really fed up with "AI", "crypto" and other scams.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#202

As far as I can tell, the AI-hate is most prominent in tech circles (creativity too, but they don't like media generation, largely embrace text though). It seems here on the ground in non-tech bubble land, people use ChatGPT a ton and lean hard on AI features. When Google judges the success of bolted on AI, they are looking at how Jane and John General Public use it, not how xleet007 uses it(or doesn't). There is als…

Without menus and ribbon panels, how do you discover the capabilities of the software?

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#204

As far as I can tell, the AI-hate is most prominent in tech circles (creativity too, but they don't like media generation, largely embrace text though). It seems here on the ground in non-tech bubble land, people use ChatGPT a ton and lean hard on AI features. When Google judges the success of bolted on AI, they are looking at how Jane and John General Public use it, not how xleet007 uses it(or doesn't). There is als…

Without menus and ribbon panels, how do you discover the capabilities of the software?

If engineers could, they would put settings and ribbon panels on people...

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#205

It's like talking into a void. The issue with AI is that it is too subtle, too easy to get acceptable junk answers and too subtle for the majority to realize we've made a universal crib sheet, software developers included, perhaps one of the worst populations due to their extremely weak communications as a community. To be repeatedly successful with AI, one has to exert mental effort to prompt AI effectively, but pre…

Isn't "Engineering" is based on predictability, on repeatability? LLMs are not very predictable. And that's not just true for the output. Each change to the model impacts how it parses and computes the input. For someone claiming to be a "Prompt Engineer", this cannot work. There are so many variables that are simply unknown to the casual user: training methods, the training set, biases, ... If I get the feeling I am…

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Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT has more than 500m DAU, three years after creation. Is that really a value perception problem?

That value (of one company) is from speculative investment. I don't think it negates that the field has a perception problem. After seeing something like blockchain run completely afoul/used for the wrong things and embraced by the public for it, I at least agree that AI has a value perception problem.

How does speculative investment get 500m DAU?

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#207
post #85

ChatGPT is the 5th most-visited website on the planet and growing quickly. that’s one of many popular products. Hardly call that unwilling. I bet only something like 8% of Instagram users say they would pay for it. Are we to take this to mean that Instagram is an unpopular product that is rbi g forced on an unwilling public?

My 75 year old father uses Claude instead of google now for basically any search function. All the anti-AI people I know are in their 30s. I think there are many in this age group that got use to nothing changing and are wishing it to stay that way.

I know plenty of anti-AI people who are older and younger than their 30s.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#208
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there. There was massive skepticism, endless jokes about internet-enabled toasters and the uselessness and undesirability of connecting everything to the internet, people bemoaning the loss of critical skills like using library card catalogs, all the same stuff we see today. In 20 years AI will be pervasive and nobody will remember being one of the luddites.

Toasters in fact dot need internet and jokes about them are entirely valid. Quite a lot of devices that dont need internet have useless internet slapped on them. Internet of things was largely BS.

That’s my point. People are making the same mistake today: hey, there’s this idiotic use case, therefore the entire technology is useless and will be a fad.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it can, will and has increase productivity in a lot of fields. Of course it’s a bubble! Most new tech like this is until it gets to a point where the market is too saturated or has been monopolised.

Yeah literally every new tech like this has literally everyone investing in it and trying lots of silly ideas. The web, mobile apps, cryptocurrencies, doesn't mean they are fundamentally useless (though cryptocurrencies have yet to make anything successful beyond Bitcoin). I bet if you go back to the printing press, telegraph, telephone, etc. you will find people saying "it's only a bubble!".

I don't think people had the concept of a bubble at the time of a printing press.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#210
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these things are genuinely so universally hated won't they just be.. capitalism'd out of existence? People will stop engaging with them and better products will win What book store will stock AI slop that no-one wants to buy?

No, because “better products” won’t exist. That’s the complaint: every company is rushing to throw AI into their stuff, and/or use it to replace humans. They’re not trying to satisfy customers: they’re answering shareholders. Our system is no longer about offering the best products, it’s about having the market share to force people to do business with you or maybe two other equally bad companies that constantly look…

That’s a very self-centered view that assumes one’s own definition of “better products” is universal.

The reality is that most people like many of the things you or I might find useless or annoying.

There are better products, but they are niche. You pay more for a non-smart TV because 1) there’s less demand, and 2) the business model is different and requires full payment up front rather than long term monetization.

But who are you or I to look at the market and declare that both sellers and buyers are wrong about what they want? I’m very suspicious of any position as paternalistic as that.

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